Founders and investors sentiment, VCs making less riskier bets and biz life during corona times.
Founders and investors sentiment, VCs making less riskier bets and biz life during corona times.
#25
This is the 25th edition of Sunday CET, a weekly curation of what’s interesting in the European investment and startup landscape.
More money in the market
🇳🇱 Gilde Healthcare closed Gilde Healthcare V, a €416m ($450m) venture and growth capital fund targeting growth opportunities in a broad range of healthcare sectors including digital health, medtech and therapeutics
🇬🇧 Good Food Fund is a new £1.8 million Accelerator and Venture Fund which will back ambitious food and drink challenger brands ready to help tackle childhood obesity. The Accelerator will be run by Mission Ventures and the Venture Capital Fund will be managed by Ascension Ventures.
🇬🇧 Rewired is a robotics focused venture studio that invests in growth-stage technology ventures and looking to add new artificial intelligence and robotics investments to its portfolio.
Interesting bets
🇧🇪 developer of AI-based digital investment solutions | €2 million | PMV, angel investors
🇩🇰 neo bank | €20 million | Seed Capital, Greyhound, Socii Capital
🇩🇰 virtual waiting room software and services | GRO Capital
🇪🇪 language learning startup | €900k | Superhero Capital, Trind Ventures, Contriber Ventures
🇩🇪 realtime online scheduling and resource management software | €4.5 million | Swiss family holding company
🇮🇸 neo bank | €1 million | Iceland Venture Studio, angel investors
🇮🇪 developer of a deep learning platform to help predict and prevent insolvency ahead of time | £1.5 million | Delta Partners, HBAN, Western Development Commission, Consilience Ventures Growing Capital
🇮🇪 distance learning platform offering university-accredited courses on coding | €1.2 million | Kernel Capital, Infinity Capital
🇸🇪 podcast business | $2 million | Schibsted, Gorilla Capital
🇨🇭 cloud tech platform connecting sensors, software, and data for intelligent inspection of assets and infrastructure | CHF 55 million | EDBI, HNWIs
🇬🇧 edtech platform for toddlers and pre-schoolers | £4 million | North Summit Capital, LocalGlobe, ADV, Entrepreneur First
🇬🇧 new banking alternative fintech company developing a new debit card product, mainly focused on the 18-35 market | £2 million
🇬🇧 all-in-one website and app creation platform | €540K
Research, data, observations
🇬🇧 UK early stage VC company Forward Partners launched a financial product providing a 6% flat fee loan payable as % of the company’s revenues. Seems less risky than deploying venture capital these days.
🇳🇴 Verdane put together a nice COVID resource page
🇳🇱 The Future of Disruptive and Enabling Financial Technology post CV-19 (Finch Capital)
🇳🇴 Norwegian chess player Magnus Carlsen launched a $250k online chess tournament. Nothing out of the ordinary here - except that this is a great opportunity for integrating it with his chess coaching app for which he recently raised $11 million.
🇪🇺 European SportsTech Report 2020
🇪🇺 Open spreadsheet w/ the Impact of COVID-19 on European tech
🇩🇰 If you’re in UK, the Danes from Pento built a handy calculator helping British businesses find out how much of their furloughed employees' wages they can claim back.
🇮🇪 Irish business website Fora.ie was closed.
🇩🇪 Freelancers in Germany affected by corona get government $$ - the whole thread is worth having a look.
🇬🇧 Nicola McClafferty and Vinoth Jayakumar from Draper Esprit were promoted as Partners.
🇬🇧 Brits are stressed, frustrated, scared and bored. Sounds about right.
🇬🇧 Mobility trends from London by using data from products such as Google Maps (you can check data from any country)
More:
One of the industries disrupted at an accelerated pace by the CV is education.
Exhibit A: Stanford announces 20% senior leadership pay cut, faculty and staff salary freeze & hiring freeze - announcement + a good thread
Another one: the restaurant business. A good read on the subject from David Chang:
I think for restaurants and the service industry, there is going to be a morbidly high business death rate. My fear is the restaurants that survive are going to be the big chains, and we’re going to eradicate the very eclectic mix that makes America and going out to eat so vibrant and great.
[…]
I see the complete destruction of the midmarket restaurant, the mom-and-pop restaurants. If delivery can be a model that is viable and people can work fewer hours and have better balance, then it is something that we should explore. I’m really worried for this industry. Sometimes cooks have gotten into this being sold a false bill of goods. No one’s told you what’s going to happen at the end of the rainbow. There is no rainbow. It’s like glamorizing being an oil-rig worker or a coal miner. Yes, there is beauty and success, but for the most part cooking is a hard job, and it bothers me that there’s not a better way to do it.
Fastest growing and declining categories in e-commerce (March 2020 vs March 2019)
Growing: gloves, bread machines, soups, weight training, dishwashing supplies
Declining: luggage, cameras, men’s swimwear, boy’s athletic shoes, gym bags
In short, the toilet paper industry is split into two, largely separate markets: commercial and consumer. The pandemic has shifted the lion’s share of demand to the latter. People actually do need to buy significantly more toilet paper during the pandemic — not because they’re making more trips to the bathroom, but because they’re making more of them at home. With some 75% of the U.S. population under stay-at-home orders, Americans are no longer using the restrooms at their workplace, in schools, at restaurants, at hotels, or in airports.
Subscription economy’s worst nightmare = customers looking at bills/credit card statements - what did you cancel?
Some of the responses: Youtube premium, Disney+, Netflix, Hulu, Luminary, HBO, Tidal, Arcade
HBO streaming was up over 40% from its four-week average. Overall U.S. TV viewing (traditional + connected devices + smart TV) grew by nearly 20% across the industry.
COVID-19 Advice for Ecommerce Brands, From Leading DTC Brands
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released an article on defending against video-teleconferencing (VTC) hijacking (referred to as “Zoom-bombing” when attacks are to the Zoom VTC platform).
How to build a "Dad's on a call" sign for your house with a $10 wifi microcontroller and controlled via a Telegram bot
Podcast listening is down as people work from home
2Q2020 US GDP Estimate
Fed has succeeded in flooding market with cash. Challenge now is convincing everyone to use it.
Covid-19, cash, and the future of payments:
Looking ahead, developments could speed up the shift toward digital payments. This could open a divide in access to payments instruments, which could negatively impact unbanked and older consumers. The pandemic may amplify calls to defend the role of cash - but also calls for central bank digital currencies.
Many people feel depressed about the COVID-19 situation, and it is without doubt a horrible tragedy - but many people are rising to the occasion, and there’s a lot of good news mixed in with the bad.
Every Vaccine and Treatment in Development for COVID-19, So Far
People are really bored these days - someone did a list of hot guys in tech, if you’re in the market for that kind of thing.
What others think
🇬🇧 Rethinking retirement: the next generation of pensions (Mosaic Ventures)
🇵🇹 My high-level definition of product-market fit: when your product(s) are adopted by an audience/users/customers that allow you to sustain a growing concern/business, in and of itself - thread
🇫🇷 Thread on startups board of directors
🇩🇪 I can tell which country an investor lives in and which industry she works in just by looking at her portfolio - link
🇪🇺 A Portuguese and a French based in Silicon Valley started doing podcasts about “no bs” views on obvious and less obvious lessons on pitching to a VC firm
🇬🇧 Wartime Product Manager’s Reading List
🇫🇮 How to operate under a crisis - advice for business leaders from Esko Aho, the former Prime Minister of Finland
🇸🇪 Startup survival sentiment in Sweden (sample of 667 answers)
🇪🇺 VC-19 Europe Barometer (sample of 100 funds active in Europe)
More:
Another VC & Founder Sentiment Survey (sample 286 founders and 114 VCs).
Judging this market by investor sentiment is like judging a restaurant by Yelp reviews.
Fascinating notes of a seasoned CEO asked to assemble from scratch an innovation startup to help Colorado’s Covid 19 response. In just 2 weeks.
70pct of emerging VC firms are single fund structures with aum <30mm with forward fee ratchets starting in year 5. Imagine raising a 10mm fund and in year 5 collecting 150k with an employee and other expenses.
There are over 1200 emerging VC firms in the US formed over last 11 years. Next two years will separate hobbyists from long term practitioners. This is not a bad thing.
“Seed is the New A – But What’s Next?” The 2020 V21 Analysis (Wing Ventures)
The downturn spiral of how layoffs can permanently destroy societal wealth - thread
‘A perfect storm for first time managers,’ say VCs with their own shops
Good thread with questions to ask at the end of pitching investors
Thoughts on the impact GPs face during these times (GP = general partner at a VC co)
Happy Sunday - be safe and be sane!
Thanks for reading 🙌
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Created every Sunday by @drnovac. Please share it with people who may find it interesting - thanks!